TUNISIA: Gulf of Hammamet

The environmental degradation of the Mediterranean basin over the last decades is
severe and gradually worsening in many areas as the coastal zone is at the same time
an area of high attractiveness for urban development, parallel economic development
of agriculture, industry, and tourism, and also an area of great sensitivity and
vulnerability with fragile ecosystems.

The heavy concentration of people and their economic activities and consumption
patterns of natural resources have resulted in a steady deterioration of the coastal
zone. Preserving, restoring, and managing the coastal environment in an integrated
and sustainable manner is an increasingly urgent task in Tunisia.

The Tunisian coastline spans 1,300 km. Over the last two decades, a major shift of
population growth, urbanization, industrialization and tourism towards the coastal
zone could be observed. The emerging problems are typical, and usually involve a
combination of rapid land use change, population growth driven to a large degree by
migration from inland agricultural areas, depletion of water resources often
accompanied by overexploitation of groundwater resources and consequent salt water
intrusion in the immediate coastal zone, and pollution from unchecked economic
development and insufficient waste and waste water management.
These development conflict with the parallel development of tourism, which depends
on the same resource basis but also on a clean and attractive environment, inland and
coastal areas.

The Tunisian case study will analyse land use change as a major driving force as
much as symptom of coastal zone management problems, and identify selected hot
spots where the conflicts of land use, water resources, and pollution are most obvious.
The case study site is the Gulf of Hammamet with its large tourist
resorts.

The effect of institutional as well as regulatory and economic conditions of coastal
zone development will be related to the patterns of land use change as the primary
indicator of coastal zone development. The comparative analysis of locations along
the entire Tunisian coastline, using remote sensing and GIS technology as the primary
instruments, will identify selected hot spots of development problems (primary
conflicts in land use, water resources allocation, and pollution) and for a detailed
analysis with the dynamic water resources and spatial development models. Emphasis
of the socio-economic analysis will be distributional effects of development, as well
as the potential for policy instruments based on overall economic efficiency and the
polluter pays principle. Implementation, administrative and regulatory efficiency, and
general political acceptability are key issues to be analysed within the network of
local stake holders and problem owners, including developers and tourism operators,
agriculture, local municipalities, state institutions, and NGOs.

The institutional end users involved with coastal zone development and
environmental protection include the Tunisian Center for Remote Sensing
(established in 1988), the National Agency for Environmental Protection, The
Tunisian Agency for Coastal Protection and Management, The International Center
for Environmental Technologies, and the National Environment and Development
Observatory.